Open Books: Event Archive
February 07, 2008 07:30 PM
SAMUEL GREEN
In December 2007, Governor Christine Gregoire announced that Sam Green
had been selected the first Washington State Poet Laureate. He has long been
a tireless advocate for the presence of poetry in daily life, writing,
teaching, editing, and printing it with spirited affection. We know he will
don this new mantle with the infectious exuberance of one who has practiced,
studied, shared -- that is to say, embraced -- the art for decades. We had
scheduled Sam's reading before this big news, in order to mark the arrival
of his recently published collection, The Grace of Necessity ($14.95
Carnegie Mellon), a volume Jane Hirshfield has praised as "warm-hearted and
full-seeing." And he certainly will read a selection of his attentive,
caring poems tonight. But particularly given his now much more public
mission, he also plans to give voice to the work of other poets, focusing on
a few of the many writers who have a connection to Washington State. We know
this will be a celebratory and invigorating evening.
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